“Aquí estámos,” the campesina’s voice rang out, more heart than tongue, “Bolivia, la esperanza del mundo.” Here we are: Bolivia, the hope of the world.

And there we were, day two of the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, filling an overflowing classroom serving double duty as the home for the Working Group on the International Climate Tribunal. Her words pierced the dense clouds of Venezuelan flags, lefty beards, cholita skirts and raised hands that misted the air, capturing perfectly the mix of optimism, anger and political courage that defined the conference.

As the applause died down, the activist retook her seat and the discussion returned to the more mundane topic at hand: the location of the proposed Climate Tribunal. The question had been more than thoroughly reviewed over the last forty minutes, but, sensing the room was not quite ready for a decision, I turned my attention to the small mound of coca leaves piled on my desk. Where conferences in other countries might have had coffee urns, we were supplied with a sizable percentage of the country’s favorite leafy crop, encouraged to chew by the handful while working group sessions jogged through their labyrinth discussions.

Like nearly every element of the conference, the coca carried a political message of resistance and opposition to the United States; from the initial planning to the elaborate opening ceremonies, the event was a brilliant act of public theater, one designed to not only bolster Bolivia’s international role in the climate debate but to attack the capitalist, imperialist Western powers. It is well-trodden ground. For years Bolivia’s President, Evo Morales, has placed the struggle against capitalism in the context of environmentalism, promoting Bolivia as an alternative model of development. His stance was put to the test during the recent Copenhagen accords, where Morales made international headlines by refusing to sign the final climate agreement.

It was within this context that the self-proclaimed spiritual leader of the Andes announced La Conferencia Mundial De Los Pueblos, declaring it an opportunity to bring together the governments of the world “who want to work with their people.” Convened on April 19-22 in Tiquipaya, a small town just outside of Cochabamba, the conference was designed as an opportunity for the gathering’s eponymous pueblos to voice ideas excluded by the elitist Copenhagen talks. Evo’s major goals were to develop a proposal for the climate tribunal, as well as to agree to a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth and to organize an international referendum on climate change.

In addition to the stated goals, el cumbre climatico was also an opportunity for Evo to strengthen his political position at home. His vision of an alternative model to capitalism is built around a vague concept of living well rather than living better – in Spanish, vivir bien no vivir mejor. Living well is a catchphrase for what Evo sees as a historical, indigenous cosmology, one that emphasizes harmony with Mother Earth. In Evo’s vision, this cosmology offers a path to save civilization from its overconsuming ways. Though lacking in specifics, it is a deeply empowering narrative for a people that occupy a small, poor, landlocked country, providing the Bolivian people with their own rendezvous with destiny.

Though the actual influence of Evo’s rhetoric is open for debate, the conference did attract a truly global crowd to little known Cochabamba. International activists, government officials and social movement leaders exchanged greetings and retorts with northern envo-NGO personnel, university students, Bolivians campesinos, and an uncomfortable number of the dredded hippies. The eclectic climate community filled the Tiquipaya township from morning to night, buying, selling, eating, lounging, sunning and generally festivaling, pulling together the best traditions of craft fairs, political rallies and farmers markets into one organic whole.

Meanwhile, the formal proceedings centered around 17 working groups focused on issues ranging from carbon markets to forests to climate migration. Each working group, which met for a total of 16 hours over three days, pulled together some few hundred of the attendees with the goal of producing a series of documents that could be presented at the December UN climate talks in Mexico. While the streets were filled with merriment, the working groups were all business. Or, rather, all politics; the sessions were sites of democracy in true action, with all the good, the bad and the ugly. Sets of exchanges would linger over word choice for hours while casually sweeping away decades of legal precedent with the click of a powerpoint-projected mouse. At the same time, the debates were inspiring as only participatory politics can be; meaningful issues were raised, opinions heard, consensus found.

Yet while intellects strived, the debates were anything but academic. While developed countries still debate the validity of climate science, Bolivia is already suffering the consequences of what Evo had dubbed el crisis climatico. La Paz, the capital, draws 40% of its water from surrounding glaciers, which are already in the process of melting. Climate change is not a question of if, or even when, but how: how bad will it get before the world acts. As one local activist described it to me, climate change is not a potential future but a set of lived experiences. He had made the long journey from La Paz to tell his own story, to tie his own history into the greater tapestry. His aspirations were widely held; there was a sense among Bolivians that the conference was a moment to share their unique perspectives, to be heard by the world at large. “I know the problem is big,” a friend told me, “but this is our chance to change things.” She paused. “We have to change things.” There was hope that, if only they were loud enough, clear enough, if only they could only make us Westerners understand the realities facing Bolivia – the realities facing their families and their communities – we would respond. We would have to respond.

This sense of hope, though, was countered by a deeper undercurrent of anger, an anger focused not on the fact of climate change but on its dynamic. A tragic irony of global warming is that the worst effects will be felt not by the wealthy, emitting nations but by the poorer countries, those least prepared to respond to them; it is in the developing states of the global south, places already prone to environmental fluctuations, with weak infrastructure and little discretionary government funding, that climate change will wreak the most havoc. To students of colonial history, the story is all too familiar, as the countries of south Asia, Africa and Latin America suffer once again for the sins of the West.

It was this anger that reverberated through microphones and strode across fliers, shaking heads and raising fists. Each working group I visited was regularly interrupted by invectives against The West, aimed largely but not exclusively at the United States. Unfortunately, that justifiable rage took material form through politically preposterous proposals. Working groups demanded that 6% of the GDP of developed countries be put towards repaying a “climate debt” to developing nations, while insisting on a complete reform of the United Nation and the opening of international borders to climate migration. Meanwhile, carbon markets, free trade agreements, agribusiness, genetically engineered crops, privatization and intellectual property rights were among the many global trends opposed by the final Peoples’ Agreement.

These ideas ignored political practicalities, following instead the logic of Bolivia’s social movements, movements that have been empowered by their own successes in domestic politics and further bolstered by the rhetoric of their president. It is a logic that places faith in the visions of indigenous peoples and believes that capitalism, imperialism and colonialism are elements of a single, evil, unitary phenomenon: “Humanity confronts a great dilemma: to continue on the path of capitalism, depredation and death,” the Agreement reads, “or to choose the path of harmony with nature and respect for life… [which requires] the recovery, revalorization and strengthening of the knowledge, wisdom and ancestral practices of Indigenous Peoples.”

With this logic dictating the conference proceedings, little in the way of realistic short-term strategies or actions was accomplished. But, then, there was little the summit could accomplish in those terms. World powers haven’t listened seriously to the demands of developing countries in the past, and they are unlikely to do so now. Power is power, and those who have it have it. Developed countries shift policies when their people demand it, and not before.

But it is here that the conference – and the logic of Bolivia’s indigenous movements – may ultimately find its purpose. For while political action is always dependent on current political realities, those realities can change. And major change always begins with big ideas that come from the margins of society and slowly gain credibility. The arguments put forth by conference participants were of conviction and overwhelming moral force, and over time, they may move to the center of debate. Meanwhile, by providing a common, democratic space for activists from developing countries, the conference took an important step forward not only by shaping those big ideas but by providing a more unified voice for the low-income nations of the world. This is exactly how movements around big ideas form, and exactly what is needed to start pushing powerful arguments — about climate change and our relationship to the earth – into the center of global political debate.

In the short-term, the glaciers of La Paz and those who depend on them face a difficult if not impossible battle. But in the long-term, it is the emotions and ideas arising from places like Bolivia that may ultimately help us confront climate change. Because any serious attempt to deal with our mounting environmental and resource issues will require a hard look at our basic economic systems and our emphasis on growth; eventually, it may just require a revision of our fundamental understanding of and relationship to Pachamama – and a recognition that harmony is more than just a word.

There aren’t many places in the world where one can buy Nintendo Wiis, dried llama fetuses and bananas by the ton, but La Cancha is one of them. A series of interconnecting outdoor markets, stands, tiendas and shopping malls that stretches over nearly a hundred square blocks in the heart of Cochabamba, La Cancha is both the city’s bustling commercial center and a physical manifestation of Bolivia’s economy, encapsulating both its strengths and weaknesses.

My first visit to La Cancha was an overwhelmingly mix of sights, smells, sounds and jabbed elbows. Crossing Calle Aroma, the traditional northern border of the market, there is a veritable assault of vendors vending from above and below, from left and right, from the streets, sidewalks and storefronts. The sheer variety of products makes Wal-Mart look like a provincial corner store: flat-screen televisions and empanadas, coca leaves and Nike cleats, Levi jeans, hand-made jewelry and imported French colognes. The market is chaotically well-organized; there’s no map or guide to the endless labyrinth, but Cochabambinos can steer helpless gringos to rows of belts, wholesale fruits, electronics, kitchenware, and artisan goods (a mortal tourist trap).

The market’s physical form reflects a hierarchy of income: at the higher financial end, individuals sell their wares from rented or owned shops; outside these stores, salesmen and women rent street and market stalls, while circling around them others set up shop on corners and on the edges of sidewalk; finally, thousands more ambulate, selling from wheelbarrows and baskets. These layers also represent a chronological progression – the market has slowly grown over the preceding decades, expanding both in territory and in density as the region’s population has swelled and as more and more of the economy has moved to the streets.

Not all of Cochabamba exhibits the same frenzied economic activity; in fact, in the city as a whole, there is a far more relaxed attitude towards commerce than one would find in any Western country. On any given street, three or four out of every ten stores may be closed – because the owners are on vacation, because business is slow, because no one has yet arrived to open it. As in many other Spanish-speaking countries, lunch is the primary meal of the day, and many businesses close from 12:00 to 3 to allow their employees to return home to eat. This holds not only for small family corner stores but for large banks, cell phone distributors and government offices. Hours are not only endlessly variable but invariably unposted. In the same vein, customer service could not be described as highly prized – there is an underlying assumption that the stores are providing a service by being open for business in the first place. Because chain stores are rare and most operations are family-owned and independent, there is an unpredictability and informality to business that – for better or worse – is rare in the ever-orderly commerce of the United States.

But things are different on the south side of Calle Aroma. There, stalls open bright and early Monday through Saturday, and lunch is taken on the job. Each and every vendor is eager for your business – because if they don’t get you, the competitors on either side, in front and behind surely will. The intensity of competition gives new meaning to the term marketplace – in the central clothing region, there are at least two hundred stalls selling virtually identical selections of jeans; the laws of supply and demand unfold in real time. Capitalism sparks in the air from the sheer energy exerted to make sales and turn a profit.

The products on display, meanwhile, speak to Bolivia’s integration into an ever-more global economy. Tens of thousands of pirated DVDs go for a few bolivianos a piece. [Even more appealing than the prices are the astonishing provenances of the movies – a recently purchased copy of Inglourious Basterds was dubbed from French to Spanish, filmed inside a movie theater using Russian subtitles.]

Next to the DVDs are ripped software packages – a program as expensive as Microsoft Suite goes for less than $2. Shampoos, cell phones, vacuums, cameras, mugs, backpacks, pencils and polo shirts all bear the stamp of intercontinental commerce. Meanwhile, imported used t-shirts, button-downs and trucker-hats from the US fill street after street, dressing lower-income Bolivians in bizarrely retro outfits (“Give Hugs not Drugs,” reads my local fruit-seller’s baseball cap). Nowhere is the turbo global-consumption more evident than in the sneaker neighborhood, where Puma and Nike battle it out with Adidas and Reebok, all competing against identical Chinese knock-offs in every imaginable shape, size, color and quality. Never could I have imagined that were so many varieties of shoe-wear in all the world.

Yet despite the tremendous range of goods — and the cornucopia of sneakers — La Cancha bears little relation to modern malls. It is a unique hybrid of traditional Bolivian commerce and modern capitalism, of dead baby farm animals and Nintendo gaming systems; it is a collision of worlds. Unlike other more traditional businesses in Cochabamba, La Cancha is always open and the customer is almost always right. But as in traditional Bolivian towns, Wednesdays and Saturdays remain Market Days, when the already crowded streets are flooded with more goods, products and peoples. When it storms, the streets are literally flooded, washing the debris of twenty thousand people along the ankles of buyers and sellers alike. Imported home theaters go for $5,000 while home-grown bananas sell seis por un peso (42 bananas for $1 US). Cactus fruit fight for space with the latest Abercrombie & Fitch designs. The rich come for computers and the poor for rice.

It is this collision that makes La Cancha such an accurate microcosm of the Bolivian economy. Like any market, it is a site of commerce and competition. Money is exchanged, profits earned, goods distributed. Bolivia’s economy functions like any other Western economy in this regard, providing for consumer freedom and protecting private property. But capitalism requires much more than free exchange – it requires the aggregation and investment of capital. It is here that Bolivia lags behind. Virtually all electronics, heavy machinery, luxury goods and processed foods sold in La Cancha are produced in foreign countries, and the real profits from their sales return home. There is no industrial base in Bolivia, nor any domestic demand – given the globally enforced trade liberalization policies – to stimulate one. Without that industry, without organic economic growth, there is a sharp disparity between the goods for sale and the conditions in which they’re sold, between the dollar-priced electronics and Boliviano-priced vegetables, between the luxuries of the upper-class and the necessities of the lower. While La Cancha has received the goods and absorbed the forms that constitute Western commerce, Bolivia still lacks the economic content that would truly drive growth.

The shimmer-red helicopter bearing Evo Morales towards the Temple of Kalasasaya last Thursday was a strangely modern twist to the morning’s ritualistic proceedings, but the theatrical entrance still earned great applause from the thousands of supporters who had gathered in the altiplano town of Tiwanaku, 70 kilometers outside of La Paz. The crowd was congregated to celebrate Evo’s imminent inauguration as Bolivia’s chief executive, a post he won for the second time this past December as part of a wider electoral victory by his party, Movimiento a Socialismo (MAS). That morning, however, the president was being vested with a brand-new title, one equally important for the people assembled: Apu Mallku, spiritual leader of the Andean indigenous peoples.

The setting was appropriate. Kalasasaya lies at the center of the remains of the most important city of the Tiahuanaco civilization, a pre-Incan empire that controlled large swaths of the Andes from the 7th to 12th century C.E. The ancient complex is one of only a few testaments that remain to speak of the peoples that flourished in the Bolivian highlands before the Spanish invasion; as a result, the social movements that seek to link themselves to the region’s pre-colonial history have adopted the ruins as a spiritual home. The site has particular resonance for the Aymara, Bolivia’s largest indigenous group and the one to which Morales himself belongs; as the traditional people of the altiplano, they consider themselves directly connected to the Tiahuanaco.

Driving west from La Paz early Thursday morning, I could see why the region had served as a spiritual center for over a thousand years. The remains of the timeworn city still stand proudly above the plateau, echoing the sharp-crowned mountains that surround the sun-battered, wind-fused plains. The land has a tundra beauty of bright flatness and green mountain air, of open horizons crowded by distant-clear peaks.

By the time I arrived at 8:30 am, thousands of elaborately dressed campesinos and campesinas were already drifting slowly from the highway towards the ruins, stopping along the way to buy fresh fruit, fresh coca and refreshing MAS paraphernalia. Decked out in my own brand-new bright-blue MAS headband and Evo scarf, I joined the crowd’s mile-long trek. Circling round a long police arc, we made our way into an open field facing the Temple.

The official ordination, scheduled for the following day (Friday, January 22) in La Paz at the Presidential Palace, was designed primarily for journalists, political elite and foreign dignitaries; there would be a long speech to the new Congress, a formal military parade and the ceremonial oath of office. But Thursday’s investiture was a celebration of and for Evo’s political base. And the base was keen to take advantage. From 9 to 11 am, the crowd grew from perhaps five to thirty thousand, as troupes representing various indigenous groups, unions and political parties arrived not only from all regions of Bolivia but from Argentina, Peru, Chile and other Latin American countries. Crews of cholitas (campesina women) wearing traditional skirts of bright red and dark umber sat in large circles sharing rice and corn. Musical troupes in luminescent green and orange danced to folk songs springing from Andean flutes and drums. Hundreds of banners large and small proudly displayed associations and affiliations, while a giant fifty-foot Evo balloon-doll graced the sky. The gathering was part political rally, part religious pilgrimage and part music festival; I couldn’t decide whether to shout slogans, meditate or crack a beer and join in the dancing.

The day was designed not only to celebrate Evo’s victory but to demonstrate the right of his indigenous supporters to mark that celebration with their own customs. It was an opportunity fully embraced. At 11 am, as the helicopter cruised to the ground behind the temple walls, Evo was met by the community’s amautas aymaras – somewhere between wisemen and priests – who ritually cleansed him with holy water and herbs before dressing him in a specially woven llama-wool robe – unku, in Aymara.

The wool itself represented communication, while the Andean symbols decorating it imbued prosperity, wisdom and success. On his head, los amautas placed a ch’uku, a hat with four corners representing the four cardinal points.

Properly attired, the politician turned priest-king ascended la pirámide de Akapana, a small nearby hill with the remains of a Tiahuanacoan altar, where he received the blessings from the South, North, East and West, respectively representing economic stability, the union of the country’s Orient and Occident, health for all Bolivians and wisdom for the leader himself.

Benedictions received, Morales and his entourage threaded their way back down to the Temple, escorted by an Aymara anciana (elderly woman) of more than 100 years of age and borne along by the galloping applause of the assembled crowd. Framed by a large archway in the Temple wall, the coronation began in earnest. Morales received two bastones de mando indígenas – which I will poorly translate as “scepters of indigenous authority” – from a pair of children in llama white. Representatives of important constituencies, including labor syndicates, women’s collectives and community coalitions, paraded by in formation and were duly recognized in turn. Finally, leaders of indigenous social movements from across the Americas – from Peru, Ecuador, the US, and Canada, among others – climbed the stairs one at a time to present the Chief with laurels, robes and other symbolic gifts.

Fully adorned, Evo turned to address the crowd, now forty thousand strong, in both Quechua and Aymara, before launching into a longer discourse in Spanish. He touched on themes familiar to those who have followed his presidency: on the power of social movements, the transition from a colonial to a plurinational state, and the need for ongoing political reform. He leveled his standard attacks on Capitalism, a term that stands in for all things American, Western, Imperialist, Colonialist and Generally Wrong.

Cheers, however, were reserved for his discussion of the historical purpose of the Bolivian people. In a world endangered by capitalism, a “new light of hope emerges from the people that never forget…a form of life lived in complementariness and solidarity…with Mother Earth … [in which] we know how to distribute wealth among all and live in harmony with all.” The Bolivians are descendents of people who have long waged a battle against capitalism, “always standing and never kneeling in the confrontation.”

Throughout the speech, repeated references to native predecessors, complemented by pledges to fight for future generations, reinforced a blunt political effort to fit the Morales administration – and the movements that brought it into power – into a historical social narrative; the morning as a whole sought to reach both back and forward in time, stretching across three millennia from the Andean nobility of the Tiahuanaco people to the recently purchased Chinese helicopter fleet. Evo was not only taking on the spiritual mantle of a centuries-old struggle for the rights and dignity of the indigenous peoples of America but proudly leading Bolivia forward in to the 21st century.

Yet while the morning’s narrative captured the imagination (at least of this partial observer), it also perfectly encapsulated the tensions latent in Evo’s reign. The ritual consciously invoked kingship while investing Morales with a heavy spiritual and political charge, thereby casting the president as a leader apart, the luminary of the world’s indigenous movements. And yet by defining the struggle in broad historical terms and situating his worldview firmly in the traditions of Bolivia’s peoples, Evo simultaneously presented himself as no more than an expression of movements that have long driven Bolivia forward.

These tensions manifest themselves in the relationship between Evo and his supporters, as that morning’s festivities well demonstrated. While supporters had made the trek from wide and far to bear witness to the ceremony, there seemed to be at least equal enthusiasm directed towards fellow political travelers. Attention would shift to the ceremony or the speech at moments of particular valence, but remained largely focused on the festivities themselves – the dancing, the hearty congratulations, the reunions of veterans of battles won and lost. I had the feeling that while Evo felt he had won the battle, la gente knew they had won the war: a victory of, by and for the people. The question is one of power and its balance. In America, when the elections end, the vast majority of people return to their apolitical lives. But Bolivia’s social movements, empowered by victories over the last decade, retain a keen sense of agency; Evo did not create them, and does not control them.

Or, at least, so believe the movement actors with whom I’ve spoken. What Evo believes – whether he sees himself as the indispensable spiritual guide or the humble movement cipher – is harder to determine. Though he rose to elected office through his work as a union-leader and organizer, it can be difficult to retain one’s grassroots orientation when in power, especially amidst such pomp and ceremony. As long as Evo’s political decisions remain aligned with the will of Bolivia’s social movements, the tensions between the two roles will remain dormant. But if paths diverge – if Evo finds himself a leader with no followers – the social movements may begin to view him as an obstacle in the way of reform, and then neither North nor South nor East nor West will be able to save him.

At the moment, this possibility seems remote – Evo won an election with 64% of the vote only a few short weeks ago. But in the months and years ahead, Evo must confront a series of critical policy questions that will pit the interests of his base against other national constituencies and needs. He has promised communities control over their natural resources, while also pledging to expand natural gas production; already, the state-run gas company YPFB has expressed concern about tensions with indigenous groups. His rhetoric around Pacha Mama and pledges to protect the environment come into clear conflict not only with these proposed exploitations of natural gas but with his ideas for lithium, timber and hydro-power use. He campaigned partially on regional and municipal autonomy, and yet has a government filled with Marxists keen on central state power. While advocating a move towards socialism, he has made few moves to challenge private property. With a five-year term ahead of him, it will be near impossible to avoid making political decisions that alienate his allies.

Morales is aware of these challenges. His speech touched on the importance of plurinational consensus and on the challenges of building a unified state. But the assemblage seemed relatively uninterested in these details of governance; by the time the formal remarks concluded, they were more than ready to return to the celebration. The crowd shouldered towards the open fields beyond the temple grounds, where hundreds of vendors stood ready with cold Paceñas and hot plates. They were joyful, united by a collective embrace of indigenous power embodied in the person of their president. That joy carried over in to a two-day long party that continued long after Evo had returned to La Paz to face the more mundane and complex tasks of governance. In that effort, he may very well succeed in balancing the interests of his traditional base and the exigencies of the country as a whole. But if he fails, he may discover that luminary though he is, and spiritual guide though he may be, he is at the same time only one actor in a struggle greater than himself.

“We dedicate this animal to Pacha Mama, and ask for a year filled with health and prosperity,” the mayor prayed. Four men lifted the bleating llama on to the rock and held her down. The cut was swift and deep, and blood gushed from the neck. I’d never seen an animal slaughtered before, and couldn’t quite believe just how much it bled – think Kill Bill, Volumes 1 and 2. The viscous liquid literally pooled across the ground.

As the legs slowly stopped kicking, the llama was flipped over. I could tell the town’s leader had some experience with these ceremonies – he cut a small hole in the chest, peeled back the skin, plunged his hand in to the elbow and came out immediately with the fading heart. “Ha-ya-ya,” the small assembly shouted in support, as the organ was reverentially placed on the coal fire smoldering alongside the broad, flat rock. A local elder dipped his finger in the blood, and gave each of the men a fingerprint on the forehead. Drinks were poured out to Pacha Mama – mother earth – and then the party resumed. Chicha (a Bolivian corn mash) was shared round, as young musicians struck up beats on tanned drums and flutes and reached into the communal stash of coca leaves. If it had not been for the eagerly-wielded camcorders, Nike-emblazoned t-shirts and Coke bottles being shared among the children, I might have believed I was in the midst of an Incan festival.

The scene was all the more dramatic for the surroundings – three hours south of Cochabamba, we were in a large, sparsely populated valley deep en el campo (the countryside). A few hundred feet below us, the remains of the bonfire from the previous night’s party still smoldered amidst a small clearing populated with ramshackle tents and lean-tos. On the plateau around us were the remains of a large Incan city – some 2000 people had called the valley home five hundred years ago, and large sections of buildings stood extant. Besides the village ran a deep ravine, in to which fell a stunning 20-meter waterfall. Tall mountains surrounded the valley, running for a hundred kilometers in every direction.

“We are here to celebrate a new year and to bring luck for the seasons ahead,” the mayor continued, blood-stained and heart-smoked. “And we are blessed to be able to do so during a historical moment of change led by our own president Evo Morales. Today, we can all take pride in the heritage of los pueblos originarios and embrace their relationship to mother earth – an relationship that provides us with an alternative vision to the capitalism that threatens our traditions, our communities and our world.”

I had heard a few of these speeches over the last 12 hours. We’d reached the gathering around 9 pm the night before, spending the last hour of the trip navigating our way along the dirt track that covered the last few dozen kilometers from the highway (I use the term generously) to the remote site. It was a miracle we’d made it at all; we had to deboard our ancient sedan to ford multiple rivers that flooded across the narrow path, which I was sure we’re going to sweep the car downstream. Crossing an ancient log bridge lit only by the meager light of our cell phone screens and shivering in the cold country air, I had nearly regretted agreeing to the adventure; all 8 people who’d squeezed in to the car were guilty of not only gross vehicular negligence but of a noteworthy lack of preparation [predictably, my camera ran out of batteries five pictures in to the evening].

Despite the mishaps, the party was only just beginning when we finally arrived, and lasted through hours of darkness, gallons of booze and a thunderstorm that graced the valley from 4 to 8 am. While the party had itself been an unforgettable blur of dancing and shadows, it was that moment of sacrifice that best encapsulated the flavor of the festival, a blend of equal parts ancient tradition, questionable historical and cultural narratives and political rhetoric (add alcohol, coca and tobacco to taste).

The night before, over cups of chicha, a local guide had explained that the ceremony, which was marking its 14th anniversary, was to celebrate the traditions of the Incans who had lived in the ancient town. From its heights, they had ruled the surrounding region, employing innovative farming methods and spreading their language and religious practices.

I was surprised neither to hear the story, nor to detect the note of pleasure in his voice when he implied that his townsfolk were the inheritors of these noble traditions. The desire to trace one’s lineage back to pre-Spanish Andean empires has spread widely among the campesino communities of Bolivia’s west and central regions over the last few decades, and with it a sense of historical pride in their (possible) forebear’s accomplishments. The shift towards eagerly embracing these lines descent can be traced back to the early 1970’s, when campesino social movements –composed of rural farmers, miners and workers, of both native and mestizo descent — began emphasizing the history of indigenous civilization as a powerful source of identity for the people of the countryside. Building on the practices and stories that survived – or emerged from — hundreds of years of cultural intermixture, oppression, and natural evolution, social movement leaders constructed a powerful narrative of origin from which to build cultural pride and political power.

Las historias de los pueblos orginarios (historias translates as both story and history) blend together the accomplishments of both the Incan and Mayan empires with those of other regional tribes and peoples. Distinctions are rarely made among these incredibly diverse ethnic, religious, geographic and cultural groups; “pueblos originarios” is an all-encompassing term-of-art. The narrative highlights the advanced agricultural technology, astronomical knowledge and organization of the various indigenous groups. The most important theme, though, which threads through all the tribal strands and binds them together, is the ancestral relationship of balance with Pacha Mama.

Historically, the emphasis on the organic connection to nature and her gifts provided a sense of pride to campesinos about their land and its cultivation. More recently, social movements have also turned to the tradition of respect for nature as a model for Bolivia’s future, confronted as the plurination is with not only a history of resource extraction and exploitation but the accelerating impacts of climate change (as highlighted in a recent New York Times article). Much of the rhetoric that carried Evo Morales to power was derived from this story – his recent attacks on capitalism at Copenhagen, for example, reference both a historical balance with Mother Earth and the effort of Bolivians to recover this sustainable relationship with nature.

Like all historical narratives of identity, the darker sides of the region’s history – of internecine warfare, human sacrifice and brutal empire building – are carefully ignored. Or, sometimes, like in the case of my radical friend Inti denied completely and attributed to the revisionist European historians. While its seems pretty clear that the Incans did engage in human sacrifice, there is plenty of revisionism to go around on both sides.

Campesino traditions today both pull from these shared historical accounts and continue to inform them. Before one drinks from a bucket of chicha – it is always drunk communally – a few drops are spilled to Pacha Mama. On the first Friday of each month, kohas – small sacrifices of coca leaves, incense, and the occasional baby llama fetus – are burnt to express thanks for the blessings from the earth. Coca is chewed not only for energy but also as an act of cultural demarcation. Like many such cultural markers, these practices are also deeply political. But because of the history of oppression of the indigenous populations – of both rights and customs — social movement and their leaders draw little distinction between the cultural and the political, between social and social movement. One of the founding documents of the campesino movement, El Manifesto de Tiahuanacu, made this point explicitly in 1973:

“Our culture is of first importance…the systematic attempt to destroy…cultures is the source of the nation’s frustrations…We campesinos want economic development, but it must spring from our own values. We do not want to give up our noble inherited integrity in favor of a pseudo development… Campesino participation has not been achieved because campesino culture has not been respected or its character understood…We must incorporate new technology and modernize while not breaking with our past…If they are to liberate the campesinos, political movements should be organized and planned with our cultural values in mind.”

To be sure, indigenity remains far more complex than any single political narrative can capture, and pueblos originarios does not fully capture the identity of any Bolivian. Each of the 36 distinct ethnic groups recognized by the constitution have their own sets of traditions, and many speak their own language. The Aymarans consider themselves Aymarans first, and the Quechuans Quechuan. But this complicated interplay of ethnicity and culture is exactly what created a need for a more universal notion of original people, and it was this notion that allowed the campesino political movements to build – and ultimately seize — power. To describe oneself as pueblo originario – or to sacrifice a llama to Pacha Mama, as the case may be — is less to say something specific about ethnicity or descent and more to stake out a political position and make a socio-cultural claim. But exactly because of the broad nature of that claim, and the racial intermixing of much of the population, it is one that a large majority of Bolivians are entitled to make — or soundly reject.

The sacrifice concluded and the barrels of chicha emptied, the locals had a final meal before dismantling the speaker system, packing up their tents in their trucks and heading back to the neighboring villages. It was Monday morning and time to go to work.

El 6 de Deciembre nearly every citizen in the country – voting is obligatory here – will go to the polls for an election whose outcome is certain: a victory for the incumbent indigenous president, Evo Morales. And yet political energy has been vibrating plazas, radio stations and kitchens nonetheless. Because Bolivians are casting their ballots not to identify a new president but to take advantage of an even rarer opportunity: a chance to define themselves.

The 2001 Bolivian Census Survey on Race identified 12% of the population as white, 30% as mestizo (mixed) and the remaining 58% as indigenous. But such demographic studies of the population are more exercises in definition than data gathering; race is an inherently fluid notion in a country with 36 recognized ethnic groups and a 400+ year history of racial mixing and integration. In a country where the racial lines are so blurred, both “whiteness” and indigenity (to coin a term) are highly economically and culturally determined. And, as a result, somewhat self-defined.

That’s not to say there are not racial lines and racism. In fact, racism is itself a class marker, a way for the largely white and mestizo middle and upper social echelons to distinguish themselves from the largely indigenous lower class. But it is the fluidity of these lines itself – and their intimate relation to fluctuations in economic status — that generate much of the racism. Rapid development, urbanization, internal migration and rising levels of economic integration are undermining the previously rigid social hierarchies. As native individuals more and more integrate in to urban life, for example, they enter the middle class economy and the accompanying culture, making it increasingly difficult for parties on both sides of the divide to make clear caste determinations. And few things encourage class and racial animosity like class and racial insecurity. As one remarkably candid young university estudiante put it to me, “the problem is that when indigenous students start dressing and talking like us, it gets really hard to tell them apart.”

Some lines remain more clearly defined. City folk of all classes refer despairingly to los campesinos, a term that encompasses all non-white rural peoples, including farmers, miners and cocaleros as well as the street vendors and laborers who commute daily in to urban areas. This divide retains power because of the ability to demarcate by geography. But even here, things are changing; massive shifts of campesino populations from the countryside to cities over the last 15 years have created both new forms of urban life and an entire new class of indigenous urbanites, who increasingly refer to themselves as indigenas or pueblos originarios. El Alto, an 800,000-person “suburb” of La Paz, is an example of these new spatial-social forms.

The urbanization of the indigenous population further accelerated the process of social change, as the new pueblos originarios and traditional campesinos together formed a powerful base from which to build social movements. It was anti-globalization and anti-government protests in Cochabamba and El Alto in the early 2000’s – protests led largely by these classes — that marked a turning point in a struggle dating back to the Spanish conquests of the 16th century. These movements, taking shape through the Movimiento a Socialismo (MAS) party, finally seized political power with Morales’s victory in 2004. But while the struggle and victory are in many way defined by race – it was, of course, the indigenous people who were historically most oppressed by the ruling elites – the picture is more complicated; only 60% of the rural population identifies as indigenous (see the 2001 Bolivian 2001).

With such confusing and rapidly shifting class, race and cultural lines, opportunities to draw sharp distinctions and clearly define oneself are few and far between. Which is why today’s election has become such a powerful symbolic moment for the country. Voting in this election is an act of self-definition, of social, class and racial alignment; in my many conversations with Cochabambinos about the elections, there were but a handful of references to actual policies – candidates’ platforms simply didn’t figure in to the equation. And though there are more than a half dozen politicians in the race, there are only two ways to vote: for MAS, or against it. To vote for MAS is to place oneself on the side of the oppressed of society – the poor, the rural, the indigenous. And to vote against MAS is to take a stand against the rapid social changes wracking the country – to mark oneself as a supporter of the old order.

Table 1: Indigenous/Non-Indigenous Pledged Support for Evo Morales. From: Gallup International Poll

Non-Indigenous Support
President: 47.0%
Opposition: 44.9%
NS/NR: 8.1%

Indigenous Support
President: 87.4%
Opposition: 12.5%
NS/NR: 0.1%

Table 2: Support for Evo Morales by socio-economic class. From: Gallup International Poll

Upper:
President: 24.1%
Opposition: 66.4%
NS/NR: 9.5%

Middle:
President: 40%
Opposition: 53.5%
NS/NR: 5.5%

Lower:
President: 61.9%
Opposition: 32.3%
NS/NR: 5.8%

The symbolic nature of the election is reinforced by the fact that the government’s most significant reforms have been aimed at revising state identity. Morales has certainly pushed the country to the left economically — nationalizing hydrocarbon resources, reinvigorating the state run oil company (YBFB) and mining company and increasing social spending through direct welfare payments. But while MAS proclaims some affinity with communist ideology, there has been no effort to undercut private property, nor is there any political appetite for such a move. In fact, the administration’s form of state capitalism has generated significant private development – Bolivia had the highest rate of growth of any South American country last year. Rather than driving towards socialism, MAS is being driven by social movements, movements that are clamoring for political and social recognition. Morales orchestrated a constitutional convention two years ago, resulting in a document that declared Bolivia a “plurinational state” and gave full recognition to all 36 indigenous groups. No one – literally, no one, including Sergio Castro, a constitutional law professor and one of the constitutional framers with whom I discussed the issue at length – knows what this means in practical terms. And that is, of course, because it is not – at least primarily — a practical matter.

Meanwhile, Evo’s rejection of US influence in the country – he expelled the American diplomat over a year ago – is not insignificant, but nor do the United States and Bolivia truly affect each other in meaningful economic or foreign policy terms. The move was far more rhetorical in nature, indicating Bolivian’s new independence from the colonial-powers-that-be and providing the public consciousness with space for the country to define itself. As one pure-bred Marxist at the public university described it to me, Bolivia has to “decolonize” from the imperialist powers. [Though as I pointed out in a previous post on corporate influence, it’s not clear how much decolonization is happening].

To decolonize or to embrace American and European civilization. A plurinational country or a national one. Indigenous or white or somewhere in-between. These are questions of cultural and state identity which will be answered through a complex process of civic debate, social change and political conflict. It is a society-wide discussion, one that will play out in households, stores and statehouses each day for decades to come. But today is a day to stay still — campaigning ended on Friday, alcohol is banned for the weekend and the streets are shut to traffic till Monday morning – and to fix one’s identity with a pencil, a check mark and a vote for one’s self.

Bolivians like Coca-Cola®. Love Coca-Cola. Feel more strongly about Coca-Cola than I thought possible. And the Coca-Cola Corporation loves them in return. Coca-Cola awnings hang above each of the dozen tiendas that sell cigarettes and empanadas to my neighbors; around the corner, the local restaurant is outfitted with a fleet of their bright red chairs. Every cooler – every. single. cooler. – proudly bears that ever-fresh C-symbol.

Coke is not the only global brand flashing its goods around town. My host brothers wear Hollister® t-shirts to the university and Abercrombie® polos to the discotechs. They smoke Camel® cigarettes in both and would wear Nike® accessories in either. My host parents, unlike their sons, prefer to save money for family items – their sons’ computers (Dell®), a microwave (LG®), and most rare in Bolivia, a small washer/dryer unit they bought a few years ago.

I’ve read my share of articles on globalization and corporate power, both in praise and in critique, and I am all too accustomed to the role of advertising and brand-power in social life. Yet I was genuinely shocked by the sheer penetration of international corporations in to the daily lives of Bolivians and the speed with which patterns of American consumerism are being replicated here. Perhaps that was naïve; corporations like Coke and Dell have every reason to encourage the kinds of purchasing habits that so mark the American economy.

And, indeed, they are quite encouraging. Coke’s slogan here is “Toma Lo Bueno.” Drink the good stuff. A different translation might read: “Drink the first-class stuff.” Or, perhaps, “Drink the first-world stuff.” Clothing-line advertisements feature skinny blond American women, who — if rare in the US — are completely absent in the population here. The modern supermarkets springing up around the city feature the kinds of family-life advertisement lines one would expect from the 1950’s. While the products differ, they’re all selling the same thing: A First World Feel.

The power of corporate brands is augmented by the broader influence of American culture as disseminated through television, movies and music. The cliché of the popular Latin American soap opera holds true, but far more popular are FX, TNT and USA. Street stands sell black-market American DVDs for just over a dollar a piece, from badly bootlegged copies of 2012 to The Godfather trilogy.  Meanwhile, the Black Eyed Peas are the most popular band in the country. Through these cultural transmissions, an image of the Good American Life has taken hold, evolving as our own society evolves.

I am in no position to pass judgment on the utility for Bolivians of the American lifestyle model. But I can see that Bolivians are moving towards that model as quickly as their resources will allow, propelling economic growth but also creating a culture of image-driven consumption and weakening nascent Bolivian industries in the process.

The popularity of American fashion, as noted, is a good example; American brands have taken deep root here and dominate the youth clothing market. The importation of these brands, meanwhile, has devastated the internal Bolivian textile market. But it’s not just young people who are affected by globalization’s images. My family spends each Saturday washing their clothing by hand in large outdoor sinks. It turns out that their washer they purchased can’t actually hook up to the pipes in the house – and is therefore never used. Meanwhile, a fellow ex-pat’s family has a brand-new microwave. They open it twice a day – after lunch, when they store leftovers in it, and right before dinner, when they take the leftovers out and reheat them on the stove. They are decorative appliances. As young Bolivians purchase American name-brand consumer goods to project a certain image, so to do families invest in the images of suburban convenience as seen in those supermarkets and TNT sit-coms.

Again, this is not so different than in America, where lifestyle images drive credit-based consumption and brand obsessions. What is different is that the profits are returning to the United States and other foreign nations, leaving Bolivia no opportunity to develop its own production infrastructure. Furthermore, American corporations are using the power of American culture to boost their profits, exploiting a resource they had no part in creating. Bolivians are and should be free to make their own decisions over spending and consumptions. But if we find American relationships to commodities to be problematic – for cultural, moral, or environmental reasons – the vast spread of our habits should be a source of significant concern.

Nate Loewentheil (nate.loewentheil@gmail.com) is a member of Sandbox who recently moved to Cochabamba, Bolivia. He will be publishing occasional pieces here on Bolivian politics as well as his personal adventures. Here’s a piece on his first inter-city bus travel.

Suggested Revisions to Bolivian Travel Guides, Part 1:

If you’re thinking about taking a Bolivian bus from one city to another, bear the following in mind:

(1) Do Not Take The Bus From Cochabamba To Santa Cruz.

a.    Note: If you are going to take the bus from Cochabamba to Santa Cruz, make sure the new highway is open. If the new highway is not open, and the bus is going to use the old two-lane highway, don’t take the bus.
b.    Note: The advertised time of ten hours bears absolutely no relation to how long the bus ride will actually take, has historically taken or is expected to take.

(2) If, for some reason, you do decide to take the bus even though the new highway is closed, choose your bus carefully. You will get exactly what you pay for, and if you pay the absolute bare-bones fare of 30 bs ($4 dollars) for the cheapest possible bus, you will get the absolute bare-bones treatment on the cheapest possible bus.

a.    Note: This will inevitably include broken seats, inoperable windows and no functioning lights. If you were thinking about air conditioning and electric outlets, please refer to Rule 1. The bus will be overcrowded and will have treacherously screeching brakes.

(3) Do not drink or eat for at least six hours before taking the bus. The lack of bathrooms and bathroom breaks are complemented by a kind of bumpiness that can only be experienced in an old bus riding through the Andean mountains.

(4) If you made the mistake of drinking water in the last six hours, and the bus driver says you can jump out of the bus for a bathroom break while the bus is stopped at a tollbooth, he is lying. He will drive away without you, and you will have to run at least a quarter of mile and execute an Indiana-Jones style diving entrance to get back on to the bus.

a.    Note: the ovations from the bus crowd will depend on the quality of your diving entrance.
b.    Note: This rule holds true not only for gringos but for Bolivianos of all ages, up to and including 80 year old Quechuan grandmothers.

(5) If an 80 year old Quechuan grandmother is left behind on the side of the road, you can force the bus driver to turn around, though he will do so only after the daughter and granddaughter start crying and only under duress and pressure from the entire bus community.
a.    Note: The bus driver will complain loudly about time lost while retrieving Quechuan grandmother.

(6) Do not underestimate Quechuan grandmothers, who are capable of moving at astonishingly fast clips to catch buses even after they have disappeared from sight.

(7) Restrain Quechuan grandmothers from using their canes to castigate bus drivers, as a severe cane beating will only further delay the bus.

(8) Do not express surprise when the bus driver, after complaining loudly about lost time, turns off on a side road and stops at a sprawling farm house where his entire extended family boards the already-overcrowded bus and proceeds to encourage people to squeeze three people in to two seats to make room for them.

(9) Do not be alarmed when you wake up and numerous individuals have shifted seats, leaving you next to the very same Quechuan grandmother, who has fallen asleep with her head on your knee and is, in a strangely endearing way, drooling.

(10) Bring soda and food to barter with fellow bus companions for toilet paper, water and other essentials.

(11) Bring small change to buy ice pops, fresh mango and cold beers from local women who hang out along known traffic spots and sell these goods through bus windows to frustrated bus residents.

a.    Note: Do not ask these women if they use the proceeds from their sales to bribe truck drivers to hold up traffic. They will not respond.

(12) If the bus ride extends beyond fifteen hours, Bolivian customs allow for all standards of personal hygiene and decorum to be formally abandoned. Feel free to change clothing, have marital disputes, breast feed and change diapers, spit coca leaves on the floor, yell loudly at the bus drivers and curse in extreme and graphic terms.

a.    Note: Bolivian customs allow for Quechuan grandmothers to adopt these rules of behavior fifteen minutes in to the trip.

(13) If the bus ride extends beyond 20 hours, Bolivian custom allows for bus drivers to be compelled by threat of group force to illegally pass large trucks and military vehicles to get around mile-long traffic jams.

(14) If the bus ride lasts in to the 24th hour, even lonely gringos will be accepted in to the bus community, fed special Bolivian treats, and counted as a partner in the effort to shun the bus driver’s family for the unspeakable sins the bus driver (and his entire extended family) must have committed to lead the bus into a 24 hour, 300 mile drive that should have taken no more than 10 hours, even on the old highway and in the worst possible bus.